Our family first learned about therapeutic grade essential oils from a friend in our neighborhood. She was kind enough to loan us some of her favorites to help us get started. It didn't take very long before we had several first hand experiences that proved the oils were special.
As we continued to experiment we realized that people needed a place where they could learn how others were using the oils. Some people passed arounds booklets of testimonials, which were indeed helpful, but they didn't provide a way to search for specific scenarios. Then the Lord inspired us to build a website to fit this need.
In 2004 we officially launched this website to help people better educate themselves on how they can take charge of their own health. For seven years this project has been a labor of love. What kept us going were the kind responses we received from some of our very appreciative website users. Read some of their comments here. Today we are trying to recoup the thousands of hours invested by charging a modest fee for the upgraded Silver and Gold memberships.
Over the years we have made many enhancements based on user feedback, which you can read about below. We hope that our website is easy to use and that you return often for the valuable health information that it contains.
| 06-19-2004 | Added code that displays Amazon.com book ads based on user's topic of interest. This works only after a user has logged in. |
| 06-21-2004 | When viewing a testimonial, we now show the professional skill of the author if they have one. |
| 06-23-2004 | Changed code so that when you see the results of a given search, they are no longer ordered by the popularity rank of the testimonial authors. It's now ordered by search phrase relevancy. |
| 06-29-2004 | Added code that will email the user when a new testimonial is posted, if it matches a topic they have searched on in the past. This only works if the user was logged in at the time of performing the search. This feature works for all of the various types of searches that can be performed (keyword, state, zipcode, country, professional skills, etc) |
| 07-04-2004 | Added form field verification. No longer can people enter ill-formated email addresses. Certain fields are now required for registration and can not be left blank. |
| 07-06-2004 | Replaced the green "Register" button with one that says "Login". |
| 07-09-2004 | Modified the search page so that the user can enter more than one word in the search field. |
| 07-14-2004 | Added a link to the essential oil resources page for other natural healing websites. |
| 07-23-2004 | We now will send an email if a person you referred to our site registers with us. A great followup tool for those who may be new to essential oils. |
| 08-03-2004 | If a registered user has not submitted at least one testimonial after being registered for 30 days, the website will send them a gentle reminder explaining this website will only be useful if everyone contributes. |
| 08-08-2004 | Added the advanced search page allowing to be more specific in the results the database returns. |
| 08-11-2004 | Started capturing session variables in the header file instead of individual html pages. This will allow for having the green buttons be dynamic. For example, if you are logged into the website, the green button that says "Login" will automatically change to "Logout". This will be another change made in the future. |
| 08-21-2004 | Created a way for users to have their name in the welcome paragraph on the main page. This only works when a person visits our website using a personal guide link that we give to all registered distributors. More information on this feature is available when you login. |
| 08-30-2004 | With newly added mySQL count query, we can now display the total number of testimonials in the database on the main page, search page and in most outgoing emails. |
| 09-09-2004 | Added ability to search for users based on country. |
| 09-16-2004 | Clarified that there can be more than one testimonial viewed or emailed at one time by using red text on the match results pages. This feature has since been removed. |
| 09-19-2004 | When viewing a testimonial, if the author has posted more than one, you can now click a link to view the other testimonials they have posted. This feature has been relocated to the menu bar. |
| 09-24-2004 | If a user is logged in, we will now populate the "ask question" and "make contact" email popup forms with their name and email address as a little time saver. |
| 09-27-2004 | If someone has registered and has not officially logged in after 30 days, they will now get a reminder email. We are experiencing rapid growth and this feature was added to help us to know which accounts to purge due to inactivity. |
| 10-03-2004 | Added the total number of registered users to the registration page. |
| 10-17-2004 | Users can now view testimonials posted since their last login. This feature is shown on the welcome page after logging in. |
| 10-29-2004 | Added a user comments page so others can read what people are saying about our website. |
| 11-12-2004 | Added this page to document the changes made to the site. |
| 11-23-2004 | Created a backend admin tool that allows support staff to quickly pull up any registered user and change their email address, etc. |
| 11-25-2004 | For search engine ranking purposes, added the H2 header tags throughout the site. |
| 12-09-2004 | People often perform queries on our site and then copy the website address and send to a friend via email. Unfortunately, the address could sometimes get quite long which has presented problems in certain email programs. I have overhauled the query match pages (keyword, zipcode, state, country, skills) to make them shorter. Here is the format we have been using up until today:
http://www.oil-testimonials.com/matches-keyword.php?keyword=bruise
Now we will be using:
http://www.oil-testimonials.com/m.php?t=1&q=bruise
We were also using separate .php pages for each of the match pages, which made making updates time consuming. A new change we wanted to implement would have to be changed in each page. Now we have combined them in one .php page and pass the type of search being performed in the website address. |
| 12-22-2004 | Fixed search types stored in the database. This was a problem since 12-09-2004 when we moved over the the new m.php results page. All searches were being saved as "keyword" even if it was a country, state, zipcode, etc. There were also some other links that were modified so that they all use m.php. This included the "Show testimonials posted since my last login" on the welcome page and "Show my other testimonials" shown next to each testimonial author. The search page was renamed to s1.php and associated match page to m1.php. The advanced search page was renamed to s2.php and the associated match page to m2.php. More search engine optimization was also done today. |
| 12-28-2004 | Changed the last few pages that have not been converted over to use header.php. Also updated the path to the stylesheet on the popup pages. The text was not displaying in the font that it should have been. On the search page, the country drop down dynamically shows countries of our registered users. When users went to search for people in Hong Kong, as an example, the results were coming up empty. The reason for this is our one user in Hong Kong does not want to be contacted by our website users. The search page was fixed to only include countries in the drop down IF there is at least one user willing to be contacted. Finally, we added new feature on the page that appears after you email a testimonial. There is a new link that says, "Go back to search results". This should make it easier to return to the list of results that first appear when searches are performed. |
| 01-27-2005 | While looking over the search logs, we noticed that many people don't understand how to use the advanced search page. As the testimonial site continues to grow, it will be imperative that people are able to quickly find what they are looking for. Today we added a sentence in red text, urging people to read the included directions, so they can obtain the best results. This involves knowing how to use quotes, as well as the + and - signs in the search field. These same advanced search features can also be used at search engines like google.com to help the user narrow down the results to something very specific. |
| 02-02-2005 | We made a change to the way the search results page functions. Now when you perform a search that brings back results, if you are logged in, your account ID will be embedded in the web address at the top of your web broswer. So if you ever copy the address in the browser, and email it to a friend, you will be notified by email if your friend comes to the site and then registers with us. Here is an example. Let's say Rich Dastrup comes to the site to find all testimonials dealing with sleep. He would type "sleep" into the search field and then click the button that would show the results. Up in the address bar of his web broswer would be this address:
http://www.oil-testimonials.com/m1.php?t=1&q=sleep&x=121
He could easily copy that address and send to a friend who was inquiring about which oils promote restful sleep. Rich's account ID, in this case, is 121 and you will see it in the web address. Now when his friend clicks on this, he will be taken to these same search results. If this visitor goes to the home page, he will also see Rich's name mentioned in the top paragraph. If his inquiring friend also decides to register on the site, Rich will be sent an automated message letting him know. This provides another opportunity to share and follow-up. Our next task is to make this same feature available on the advanced search page. |
| 05-31-2005 | It's been a while, but made some time today to make some more minor changes. We have been busy putting together our sister site, e-downline.net. The change today deals with those registered users who are promoting our website using their personal guide link. Each user gets one of these and looks something like http://www.oil-testimonials.com/121 Now when people come to our website via your personal guide link, in addtion to showing your name and email address, there will also be a link to any testimonials that you have posted. This will make sharing your experiences with the oils even easier.
We also fixed the problem on the user comments page. Each user had a link pointing to testimonials they have posted. For some reason, each of these were broken and are now working again. |
| 07-18-2005 | On the login page there is a link that you can click on to have your password emailed to you. Unfortunately, the link was positioned right before the "Login" button. Many people use their TAB button on their keyboard to move from field to field on a website form. Too many people have tabbed from the email address field, to the password field, only to then tab to the password reminder link instead of the login button. They were going in circles trying to login. The text link has now been repositioned below the button, which should take care of this problem. |
| 07-20-2005 | Since we are starting to phase out the Amazon book ads, it's come to my attention that some older accounts in the system were having problems requesting their password via email. This has been fixed and everyone should be able to use this feature now. We also made the login field for the email address longer. Some users had email addresses longer than 35 characters. |
| 10-25-2005 | After logging over 18,000 searches in the database we decided to change how searches are stored. The point of logging searches is to notify the user when a new testimony is posted that matches keywords they searched on in the past. As it currently stands, you don't have to login to perform a search. Therefore, the database has been filling up with searches that will never be used for notification emails. With the change made today, searches will only be logged now if you login first. |
| 03-05-2006 | We have made several changes recently. Probably the most obvious change is the background color. Instead of the yellow we decided to switch to green. Several people have commented that the yellow background made reading the text difficult. We also brought back the Google Adsense ads. We had these early on when we first launched the website, however, many people complained because the ads would often times show all kinds of companies that sell essential oils. We couldn't filter the website address out fast enough so we took them off and replaced them with the Amazon book ads. Recently Google contacted us and asked if we would like to beta test a new ad filter based on keywords as opposed to filtering out website addresses. We were delighted! Over the course of a week or two, and continuing to add more and more "negative keywords" the ads are finally to a point where we are satisfied. For the most part, they are very relevent to the type of person who visits our website. If you disagree, or would like to make some comments about the ads, just send us an email. |
| 03-21-2006 | We have made more changes to the website to make it even more search engine friendly. We just learned that many of the testimonials in the database haven't been indexed by google and some of the other large search engines. This was because, we were told, that we were passing too many parameters in the URL. This makes it difficult for google to view and index our content. Let me give an example. In the past, each testimonial would have and address like:
http://www.oil-testimonials.com/finished.php?tID=1172&uID=019
The part that was giving google fits was ?tID=1172&uID=3019. So with some tweaking we have become more search engine friendly. To view the same testimonial today, all you need is:
http://www.oil-testimonials.com/1172
As of today we have over 700 of the testimonials that have now been indexed by google. This will continue to bring us web traffic of people seeking natural remedies to health problems they face.
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| 04-17-2006 | Many of you have been patient from the beginning of this website in regards to duplicate emails. For example, let's say you searched for the following phrases over time: "back ache", "lower back pain", "back pain". If a new testimonial was posted with a title of, "Peppermint works good on back pain", then you would get three emails alerting you. This is because the word, "back" was found three times in your list of saved searches. Well, we finally found a solution that works and the duplication is a thing of the past. One of our next projects is to create a page where you can edit and delete your saved searches. Stay tuned. |
| 11-22-2009 | Today we added the ability to manage all of the keywords that you have searched on in the past. This only works, however, if you logged in prior to conducting a search. If you searched on the word 'headache', for example, this keyword will appear in the list. When future testimonials are posted that match the word 'headache', then an email will be sent out to tell you about it. |
| 04-07-2010 | We have applied the same functionality to referrals. Now when you go into your account you will see an option to view the referrals you have sent. It will show if your friend decided to come visit the website and the date that they arrived. You can easily delete any referral that you no longer wish to monitor. |
| 07-18-2010 | You asked for it and we finally delivered. You can now tag a testimonial as one of your favorites. This has become an increasingly more of a necessity now that there are over 3,500 testimonials to search through. Once you have marked a testimonial as one of your favorites, you can see it in "My Searches". |
| 11-11-2010 | Today we are requiring everyone to login before conducting keyword searches. We have over 14,000 users but most of them NEVER login when coming to the site. It makes it difficult to plan for maintenance and planning hardware upgrades when we don't have a clear number of how many people visit us each day. Having everyone login will help fix that problem. Some people have been concerned that they don't want to make their friends login just to read one testimonial to help them. Never fear. You can still email the full URL to a given testimonial to a friend or even post on Facebook. Anyone who clicks on that link will be taken straight to the testimonial. However, should they desire to search the website with their own keywords, then they will need to create an account. |
| 11-19-2010 | For several years there have been some problems with the HTML code. It has caused the graphics in the header and footer to be skewed, showing extra white space. This has finally been repaired. |
| 11-22-2010 | There will no longer be popup windows when trying to make contact with people in the database. From now on there will be a html popup within the webpage. This looks more attractive and gets around the fact that some people have popup browser windows blocked. |
| 06-01-2011 | This list of changes made to the website has always been its own history page. It is now being moved into the "About" webpage because it seems like a better place for it. We also have moved the user comments page to the "Contact" page. |
| 06-07-2011 | For years we have been using javascript to validate the fields on the registration form. Today we yanked that out and are now using PHP to check the data. This will now allow people to register that have a q.com email address. Also, when you go into My Searches you will see a reminder if you have turned off email notifications. If this applies to you, and you would like to turn on email notifications again for new testimonial matches, just let us know and we'll fix your account post haste. |
| 07-19-2011 | In addition to having a Facebook Like button on our login page, today we also added it to each testimonial page. When you click the button, a new entry will be added to your Facebook wall for all of your friends to see. If one of your friends clicks on the link to read the testimonial and decides to register on our website, you will be notified that you have a new lead to follow-up with. Isn't that a cool way to use the power of social networking to casually build your Young Living downline? |
| 12-02-2011 | We now indicate which of your leads are already Young Living distributors. Click on 'My Leads' to see the member status for each lead. Hopefully this information will help when contemplating an upgrade to our gold membership. This change came from user feedback, so keep it coming. |
